STATEMENT
I am a Belfast based painter making small and medium sized realistic figurative work on canvas or wood on a wide range of subjects capturing fragments of often unremarkable, everyday spaces and objects.
I work from photographs mostly taken on my phone. Although the source imagery is not posed, I do spend a lot of time editing to construct my compositions. I am really interested in capturing reflective surfaces and textures in a convincing way without ever trying to hide the fact that I’m using paint. I use a combination of direct painting and traditional underpainting layered with thin translucent colour. It’s these nods to classical painting technique combined with the framing style of contemporary digital imagery that helps create a quality of ambiguity in my work. What, if any meaning, the viewer reads into my paintings is entirely up to them.
Colin has work in many private collections and in 2025 his work was purchased by The Office of Public Works for the Irish state collection.
EDUCATION
2024 - 25 Painting Resolution, RHA School, Dublin
1987 - 90 BA (Hons) Design, Belfast School of Art, University of Ulster
1986 - 87 Foundation studies, School of Art and Design, Bristol Polytechnic
GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2025
Resolve 25, RHA School, Dublin
195th RHA Annual, Royal Hibernian Academy, Dublin
2024
Emerge, TUD, Dublin
143rd RUA Annual show, Ulster Museum, Belfast
Main exhibition, Boyle Arts Festival, King House, Boyle
194th RHA Annual, Royal Hibernian Academy, Dublin
2023
OXO, Outset Gallery, Galway
Art on a Postcard Winter Auction, Gathering, London
255th RA Summer exhibition, Royal Academy of Arts, London
193rd RHA Annual, Royal Hibernian Academy, Dublin
2022
142nd RUA Annual show, Ulster Museum, Belfast
192nd RHA Annual, Royal Hibernian Academy, Dublin
169th RWA Annual exhibition, Royal Western Academy, Bristol
2021
141st RUA Annual show, Ulster Museum, Belfast
191st RHA Annual, Royal Hibernian Academy, Dublin
2020
252nd RA Summer exhibition, Royal Academy of Arts, London
140th RUA Annual show, Ulster Museum, Belfast
190th RHA Annual, Royal Hibernian Academy, Dublin
NEAC Annual show, Mall Galleries, London
Self, Espacio Gallery, London
2019
139th RUA Annual show, Ulster Museum, Belfast
189th RHA Annual, Royal Hibernian Academy, Dublin
AWARDS
2021
Outstanding artist prize 141st RUA Annual show, Ulster Museum, Belfast
MEDIA
2023
The Secret Artists, (Documentary) The Rocks Productions and Lennox Productions for BBC Northern Ireland